Heydays: A life's lesson learned in the parking lot of a discount store

ED HAYESThe Orlando Sentinel

Published Saturday, August 24, 2002

ORLANDO -- Although the law apparently had been broken, the continuing scenario unfolded neatly, swiftly, sanely.

The excitement lasted less than 10 minutes.

Here's what happened:

At the wheel of my slow-moving automobile, I witnessed an employee bursting forth from a discount chain store, hot on the tail of a young fellow who, I later ascertained, had been designated a shoplifter.

With several more employees supplying support, the chase culminated seconds later in the parking lot.

By the time I parked my own vehicle, the alleged thief was being ushered back into the store, to await representatives of the Orlando Police Department.

I'd been unable to get a close-up look at the apprehended fellow, but from what I glimpsed, and for whatever reason my mind was able to conjure in the exposure of mere minutes, my heart went out to him.

This is not a defense of his deportment. I detest his stunt, or whatever the hired hands claimed he tried to pull off.

It's been calculated that all of us, we the public, in the end, pick up the tab for shoplifters.

The act is an infraction of the law, and as posted signs in most emporiums point out -- often with exclamation points! -- violators will be prosecuted.

And yet, what I saw here was a scared young man in a public place on a humid August afternoon, ever so suddenly surrounded by hostile eyes.

That morning he was somebody else. Now he was a marked man, branded forevermore.

Random onlookers, even neighbors, might not give a doggone about him, but something happened to him, and now he'll be able to read loathing and distrust in some folks' eyes.

Socially, he might even be committed to a step lower than the string of corporate chiselers who've stolen for years from the nation's poor box.

My hope is that he didn't feel pressured into this deed only because there was no place for him in the labor market.

I remember another scene, from 20 years ago, inquiring of a teenager on a street corner whether he could help me find a certain building. Eagerly, he hopped in my car and showed the way.

On the drive -- and there was so much earnestness in his plaintive look that it hurt -- he asked whether I knew where he could find work. Sadly, I shook my head.

That scene has hounded me over the years. If nothing else, I should've taken the kid's name, tossed him a hopeful morsel to nibble on.

Well, what I'm trying to make clear here is that I've reached a level in life where you look back and wonder how many golden chances you muffed along the way to make the existence of a friend or a stranger a little easier.

That's what I was mulling the other day during the parking-lot drama.

And pondering whether the cornered fellow might've spoken those same words somewhere this day, wrenching words that I long ago heard, "Mister, you know where I can get a job?"

Ed Hayes, 78, is a retired staff member of the Orlando Sentinel. Readers may write him in care of the Orlando Sentinel, MP-72, P.O. Box 2833, Orlando, FL 32802-2833.